Executive & Business Coaching in Puerto Rico - Blog by Alex Fleming - Attorney at Law/Certified Coach and business advisor

09/21/2007

Communicating With Your Team

(By Bob Roberts. Bob is a certified business coach with Action COACH, he is based in Hartville, Ohio)

Communicating with Your Team Have you ever heard people say
things like, “Management never lets us know what’s going on,” “Our
questions and concerns don’t get through to them” or “They just don’t
care. They’re too busy looking out for themselves”? Unfortunately, this
lack of communication is typical of the situation in too many
organizations and can be solved by remembering this simple but powerful
phrase:

"Communication is the response you get."

In other words, it's not what you say but how people respond to what you say that is important. It could be that youare the problem - not those on the receiving end...!

1. Develop trust – It’s not automatically given; it must be earned.
2. Openly communicate more than you have to or need to. Make it your top priority.
3. Be as specific as possible in the words or phrases you use.
4. Supply whatever background information and reasons people need to understand changes.
5. Be absolutely honest with all employees.
6. Actively share information and feelings. (Yes, people have feelings in the workplace too.)
7. Talk to employees as one adult to another (the way you would like a leader to talk to you.)
8. Always solicit ideas, suggestions and reactions from your team.
9. Follow through, always – no exceptions.
10. Recognize that the job of the leader is to remove roadblocks, irritants and frustrations, not to put them there.
Remember team members are important and want to be treated that way.
They want to feel that they belong and that their work makes a
difference. If they aren’t made to feel this way, they’ll work just
hard enough to get by. Don’t let that happen to your company!